European Research Consortium Pursues Chip-Sized Microscope

ChipScope, a European research project under the leadership of the University of Barcelona, aims to develop a completely new and extremely small optical microscope capable of observing the interior of living cells in real time.

A consortium of seven partners from five countries will tackle this issue during a four-year research program. To demonstrate the usefulness of this new scientific tool, the project will result in a chip-sized microscope that will be used to observe, in real time, the interior of cells present in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. In the future, these in-chip microscopes could also be integrated into consumer electronic products.

During the project, 50-nm LEDs will be developed and used as light sources for the new microscope, which will be integrated on a chip. The illumination is made by extremely small individual light sources, instead of a wide illumination field, and tiny detectors in the camera, allowing superresolution optical microscopy, which could be used to investigate extremely small structures such as viruses, DNA or living cells, in real time.

The ChipScope project runs from January 2017 to December 2020. The project team includes small- and medium-sized enterprises, universities and research organizations under the leadership of the University of Barcelona. Other partners include the Technical University of Braunschweig in Germany, the University Tor Vergata in Rome, Expert Ymaging in Barcelona, the Austrian Institute of Technology, the Medical University of Vienna and the Swiss Foundation for Research in Microtechnology.